With increasing needs for storage of data, storage area networks (SANs) have become a widely accepted solution for storing huge amount of data associated with a network of host devices. In a SAN, a switching device connects host devices such as data servers to storage databases in a storage area network. To overcome interoperability issues, the switching device may have protocol translation features which enable a host device of one protocol to interact with a storage database of a different protocol in the SAN.
Protocol translation is currently implemented by installing one or more line cards in the switching device. These line cards are protocol specific, i.e., to connect a host device associated with a particular protocol to the switching device, a line card associated with the same protocol as the host device must be installed in the switching device. For example, GigE line cards are used in a switching device for connections with Ethernet devices, fiber channel (FC) line cards are used for connections with FC devices, and so on. Further, each line card associated with a particular protocol has a separate specific-purpose processor associated with it for translating frames associated with that protocol to a second protocol. For example, FC frames must be provided to an FC line card, which further provides the FC frames to a FC-specific processor 1 associated with the FC line card for translation. Similarly, Infiniband (IB) frames must be provided to an IB line card, which further provides the IB frames to a IB-specific processor 2 associated with the IB line card for translation.